WhatsApp opens up video calling to everyone, Google and Facebook take aim at fake-news sites

Global digital news of the day - WhatsApp is rolling out video calling today to its billion-plus monthly users,Facebook and Google announced steps to prevent fake-news websites from generating revenue through their ad-selling services, and more

WhatsApp opens up video calling to everyone: WhatsApp is rolling out video calling today to its billion-plus monthly users. That’s basically the entire story — if you’d like to use it, update the app, open a chat, and tap the familiar video camera icon in the top-right corner. The video chat results look like the video chatting you’ve done before on FaceTime, Skype, Facebook Messenger, or Google Duo: two faces, one in a smaller window, with a handful of small features for changing the position of the chat windows or turning the camera around.

Apple Considers Wearables Expansion With Digital Glasses: Apple Inc. is weighing an expansion into digital glasses, a risky but potentially lucrative area of wearable computing, according to people familiar with the matter.

Renegade Facebook Employees Form Task Force To Battle Fake News: Facebook employees have formed an unofficial task force to question the role their company played in promoting fake news in the lead-up to Donald Trump’s victory in the US election last week, amid a larger, national debate over the rise of fake and misleading news articles in a platform used by more than 150 million Americans.

Do marketers really need chief media officers?The Association of National Advertisers’ watershed transparency report, released in July, unleashed a flurry of action in marketing organizations to better get a handle on where their ad spending is going. One of the report’s recommendations: It’s time for big brands to empower a chief media officer to serve as a watchdog.

Are Facebook and Google really taking all the digital ad growth? Recently, a few researchers have claimed that Google and Facebook are taking all of the upside in the digital ad industry’s growth, while the rest is actually shrinking. But it’s important to note that these researchers use different methodologies, which to one degree or another, favor large public companies and underestimate the long tail.

McDonald’s is using a new McRib Locator app to inform future marketing: Every year, McDonald’s releases the McRib sandwich. A limited-time offer, the menu item is only available for a few weeks, leading legions of McDonald’s fans to try and figure out which restaurants are carrying it and how many they have left. For the last few years, fan-created McRib locators have popped up on the internet.

Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake-News Sites: Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google announced steps to prevent fake-news websites from generating revenue through their ad-selling services, signs that technology companies are moving to address a growing controversy about misinformation on the internet.